1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is a method of controlling remotely located calculation algorithms based on expert system diagnoses and, more particularly, allows the diagnosis of sensor failure by a remotely located expert system and the transfer of the results of the diagnosis to a sensor sampling and plant control system which controls sensor calculations and control calculation based on the diagnosis.
2. Description of the Related Art
Complex calculations are currently done by plant data centers located at complex plants such as electric power generating plants. An example a complex calculation is a thermodynamic turbine efficiency calculation. Such a calculation is based on on-line data and a bad sensor value can produce ridiculous results, such as turbine efficiencies greater than 100% or less than 0%. Since turbine efficiency is used by the plant operator to guide control operations attempting to maximize plant efficiency, bad calculation results can prevent the operator from obtaining maximum plant efficiency. To cope with the bad calculation problem, complex sensor analysis algorithms are provided in the data center computer to cope with the many possible problems that sensors can experience. When a new sensor problem occurs, the complex sensor analysis algorithms frequently break down and the complex calculations based on uncorrected sensor values are performed. What is needed is a method of performing sensor diagnosis which relieves the plant data center computer from the task of sensor diagnosis and allows the plant data center computer to concentrate on on-line data acquisition and process control.
The remotely located diagnostic centers continue to receive bad data in such situations, and, as a result, faulty high level system diagnoses are made or the diagnostic system simply sends a message to the plant operator indicating that the sensor must be fixed before certain high level diagnoses can be made. Currently no communication is performed between the data collection routine and the expert diagnostic system. What is needed is a method allowing the sensor scan and processing routines to communicate with the diagnostic system.